Review Date: 2026-02-15
Release Date: 2015-12-01
Developer, Publisher: Ubisoft Montreal, Ubisoft
Verdict: All-Time Classic/Favorite Game
Disclaimer: This review was written on 2026-02-15 and reviews the state of the game, and its history, up to that point in time. Any additional patches, updates, and DLC delivered since that time are not included in the scope of this review.
After almost 2.3k hours played across more than a decade since its initial release, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege (now Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege X) will always hold a special place in my heart as one of the most exciting and addicting competitive team-based shooters out there, and one of my all-time favorite games. Combining in-depth strategy, excellent gunplay, destructible environments, and mostly-grounded hero-shooter mechanics, the siege formula has kept the game alive for over ten years.
I first played Siege in its launch month of December 2015, after receiving it for free as bundled with an Nvidia GTX graphics card. Of course, I had already been interested in Siege before that, but thinking back to that cold winter evening is where this story really starts.
Siege was marketed (and honestly mostly delivered) on being a tactical multiplayer competitive shooter successor to previous Rainbox 6 titles (of which I had barely played). Featuring rappelling, destructible environments, lots of opportutnity for strategy, and grounded visuals, there was a lot that made Siege exciting, even on release.
However, after a few months, the game at least felt like it was dying down a bit. Competitive queues were very pretty much empty, and as I was already playing CS:GO as my primary competitive shooter, for a while I only really played Siege as a fun tacticool break from other games.
That all changed with the Y2S3 (Blood Orchid), when I took my first real dip into competitive/ranked Siege, and got addicted, and the game also gradually increased in popularity. Since that season, Siege has been my prirmary game, though my play time has varied, and I've missed a few here seasons and there (e.g. I barely played most of Y7 and Y8), and haven't really played much since Y9S4 (Collision Point), mostly due to becoming a father and having a lot less time for gaming.
I did want to reach Champion rank before my child was born, but had to settle for Top 1.5% globally, which still makes me extremely happy and feels like the perfect culmination of my time spent with the game. Almost my entire playtime in Siege has been solo-queue and duo-queue, and I do recognize there is a level of luck involved reaching the highest ranks when you aren't playing with reliable/known teammates that you've practiced with. That is one of the things I like about Siege though, that even if I get placed with bad teammates, I still feel like my own skills, strategies, and abilities can win us the game. (Not to say I am the best player, we all have bad matches, and I am no stranger to playing terribly and going through slumps).
All that said, over the 10 years since Siege first launched, the game has gone through many changes and iterations, but has mostly kepts its core formula steady, and continues to draw players in.
A combination of things really sets Siege apart from its contemporaries, and I've already briefly touched on a handful of things that make up this Siege formula for success.
At its core, Siege is a round-based 5v5 competitive team hero-shooter (as much as I hate that word). Every round, the attacking team must break through (commit a siege against) the defending team's defenses, reinforcements, and bullets to accomplish their objective.
While initially there were more types of matches, Ubisoft eventually settled on Bomb Defusal as their primary ranked gamemode. In this mode, the Attackers must plant a defuser on one of two bomb-sites active that round, while the Defending team must either prevent them from planting or disengage the defuser.
Ultimately, the objective is similar to that of the (even more successful) Counter-Strike series, except you're planting defusers instead of planting bombs.Where Siege most differs from CS, however, is the preparation phase. Each round, during the preparation phase, Defenders reinforce their bombsites, set up traps, and prepare for the siege, while the Attackers are able to use this time to operate their dones (i.e. droning) and gather intelligence on the enemy team's composition, strategies, and placements.
Then the action begins...
In my opinion, Siege has always had the smoothest gunplay on the market. Between fluid left-right leaning, various player stances, TTK, recoil variations, weapon attachments, and more, I don't think I've ever played a game that was as satisfying to shoot in as Siege is.
In fact, Siege has spoiled me on some of these mechanics, and each of these mechanics plays right into the Siege formula.
Q-E/LR leaning in Siege is by far the best implementation I've seen in modern gaminig. It is useful in so many tactical situations, inherent to all shooters, but especially Siege. Need to round a corner? Better lean into it appropriately so as to not show your whole body. Need to set up a certain angle to maintain a specific line of sight? Lean. Leaning becomes such a natural extension of the player's movements and existence in the gameworld, that it actually feels lacking when you hop to other games without it.
Combining leaning with Siege's stances and movement options adds to this fluidity. Siege allows players to lay prone, crawl, crouch, crouch walk, silent crouch walk, stand, walk, silent walk, run, vault, climb, rappel, rappel upside-down, breach enter, and more. The movement does not feel arcadey (e.g. no jumping around 360-noscoping), though it has had its lower points (e.g. the dropshotting issues earlier on), and provides the player with so many different opportunities and ways to approach a situation. It lets players constantly choose and fluidly swap between silence/concealment, quick motion, player positioning, and more, once again playing into the Siege tactical strategy formula.
TTK is also satisfying, and feels at least semi-realistic, and each gun has a mixture of stats that all have their own strengths, weaknesses, and tradeoffs. This is furthered by the attachment system, which allows players to further trade-off certain stats in one area for another area. While there are weapon metas, it feels a lot more customizeable, and a lot more balanced, than some of Seige's contemporaries.
Outside of weapons, Seige is classed as a "hero shooter", because each character has a unique gadget that alters the gameplay in some way. Whether it is a hard breacher that can place special charges on reinforced metal walls to blow a hole open, or a support character that deletes incoming grenades, Siege has introduced countless fun and interesting gadgets into the game, and for the most part has not had many balancing issues.
These operators matchups keep the game feeling fresh, and allow for a number of ways to build a team for a round, for unique situations and scenarios. Playing against a rush-heavy composition of Attackers? Pick some trap operators. Need to counter a niche smoke-shield plant? Pick the guy that can see through smoke or bring ops with C4 and other throwable AoEs.
Ubisoft also generally hasn't just dumped operators out there either. Just like the weapons, operators and gadgets are constantly being assessed/measured, reworked, buffed, nerfed, and balanced. There are a handful of operators that certainly are picked more than others, but it feels like all operators are viable and have a point/niche to fill. What's ultimately most important is team composition, and a proper team comp can be filled out in a number of ways.
As mentioned, each side also gets a handful of other tools at their disposal, and some of the most important for each side are their respective cameras. Attackers receive a handful of tiny cylindrical floor drones, which can race around, hide around the map, ping gadgets, ping enemies, and gather intelligence. Defenders, on the other hand, receive a handful of stationary cameras throughout the building, which serve much the same purpose. Combined with other basic defensive gadgets (e.g. deployable shields, bulletproof cameras, barbed wire) and offensive gadgets (e.g. smoke grenades, frag grenades, flashbangs), each side has a whole compliment of tools at their disposal, to use alongside their main gadgets, aim, and skill to accomplish their objective.
While intel gathering is important in many competitive games, it is core game mechanic in Siege.
The other part of the Siege formula is Ubisoft's ability to take this gunplay andthese tools/mechanics, and allow players to use them to their fullest potential in well-crafted and balanced maps.
Now, don't get me wrong, Siege has had its fair share of less-than-loved maps and poor mapping decisions, but overall Siege maps are a fantastic extension/sandbox for the Siege style of gameplay.
Defender options for bombsites each have their own balancing, with specific placements of soft-walls, solid-walls, furniture, sightlines, windows, doors, and more. This allows for Defenders to place their reinforcements, gadgets, tools, and players in strategic ways, to enable a higher likelihood of specific advantageous situations to play out. Attackers are generally given the same balanced ways to enter site, assuming that they have brought the right gadgets/operators, based upon their observations during the drone/prep phase.
These environments are highly destructible, with good limitations to maintain fairness and site/map integrity. The maps are designed in such a way that both sides feel like they have a winning chance, even if some sites or some maps skew slightly to one side or another, while allowing for experimentation and strategy-making to open up new sightlines and create chokepoints.
Sound design is also critical here, and is done fairly well (though up-down staircases still suck), allowing players to accurately pinpoint where enemies may be, when they are close.
Of course, the best game mechanics and design in the world can be brought down if the game is P2W. Fortunately, Siege doesn't really fall into that trap. I haven't spent a single dollar on Siege. I received the game for free over a decade ago, as part of video card bundle. I have never bought a single skin, pack, or operator with real cash. I have never paid for a premium battlepass. And yes, I have almost 2.3k hours in the game, and have enjoyed most of my time in it.
The closest it gets to P2W is two areas: 1) people that pay extra get the new operator before everyone else does (or at least, it was this way the last time I really was playing heavily) and 2) some skins blend in with the environment better, but both of these points are pretty weak. The new operator usually is fairly well tested and has plenty of counters to make it not much of a concern in even ranked play (I've never felt "aww man, we lost because they owned that operator and I didn't") and the majority of skins (including good camos) can be unlocked for free via free loot crates/alpha packs or free credits. I still don't even own every operator (all of which are unlockable with in-game earned currency), and probably never will, and I still feel highly competitive and not at a disadvantage.
Most of the content also feels fairly fitting to the game as well. While yes, there are shoehorned in promos (like pickle Rick from Rick & Morty) or other silly costumes like furry outfits and butterflies, it never feels too overbearing. Occasionally, it makes operator readability somewhat harder (i.e. "who was that I just saw?"), but generally, I feel like I can identify who is in play, and still feel like I am in a cool tactical environment.
One negative, however, is the Siege community environment. It is one of the most toxic cesspools I have experienced, and in my opinion, worse than many of its contemporaries.
Many matches are filled with racist/sexist/bigoted usernames, racist/sexist/bigoted user profile pictures, and people communicating racist/sexist/bigoted things in text and voice chat. Kids, teens, and young men scream and rage at any minor inconviencence and immediately blame and flame teammates and enemies alike.
Over the years, Ubisoft has rolled out additional mitigations to help curb this behavior, from enhanced reporting systems, block-by-default all-chat, global-muting repeat/serious offenders, and if I recall correctly, even some AI monitoring, but the issue persists.
Hell, the last time I was playing heavily, there was a guy with the actually fully typed-ouyt hard "R" N-word as part of his Ubisoft Connect username, that I saw multiple times over the course of a season, and I don't know if he ever even got banned.
While this is (unfortunately) likely always going to be a part of the competitive gaming scene, the older I get, and especially since the birth of my child, it really makes me question if I even want to put up with it anymore. Trash talk is to be expected, but Siege's community goes beyond that.
And that's not to say I'm some saint either. I was a teenage boy and young man in video games at one point too, but this is on a whole other level... and honestly feels like it only continues to get worse... but that's a political/generational/human nature topic I'm not interested in getting too deep into on this post.
That's also not to say there aren't good people out there playing Siege. I've come across plenty of nice people and had plenty of positive experiences playing the game. I just wish it would get better or be policed a bit better.
While my Siege days are probably mostly behind me, I did pick it back up again for a little bit today. I had been watching Shortcat on YouTube playing some competitive Nintendo Mario Kart World, a skill which I think I would have difficulty attaining, and it made me a little nostalgic for using my own gaming skills and days gaming competitively. Siege has evolved even further since I stopped playing last year, after my son was born, but has been evolving ever since day one over a decade ago.
Yet, despite the constant changes, new content, and evolutions, the core of Siege is still certainly there. Just as addicting, skill-based, and toxic as ever, and I may return to it further some day.
Siege as a game means a lot to me. From my bachelor days of the endless career/working -> gym -> Siege -> repeat cyle to my gradual departure from the game, as corny as it sounds, I will always cherish my time spent with Siege, and tthe meaning it gave me for many years of my life, as a competitive human being. There's nothing quite like it out there, and I hope it has many more years of life to come.
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